Global Marketing placement: Anaan Ali shares her work experience story

Last year Capgemini hosted over 80 students across the country and across different areas of the business.

Anaan Ali reflects on her time with us below after completing a weeks’ work experience within our Global Marketing team based in Holborn, London.

If you would like more information and how to apply for a work experience placement at Capgemini click through to this link.

Clare Mills, Schools Programme Manager

Global Marketing placement: Anaan Ali shares her work experience story

In 2012, when I was studying for my GCSE’s, I came to Capgemini’s Holborn headquarters with my school. I was in and out for different events since then, but now that I’ve completed my first year as a Marketing student at university, I have returned for another week as an intern. The first week, I had a few years ago, was within the Internal Communications department. I had an amazing time and my hosts Anita and Laura were extremely helpful, they made the seemingly daunting week a lot more vibrant and friendly than I had expected.

Coming back, my new host in the Marketing department, Neha, was absolutely amazing and had arranged all sorts of activities for us. She listened to what we wanted to gain from the week and made everything we asked for happen. Thanks Neha! The Applied Innovation tour stood out most as it was something completely new to me and was very different to how I have always expected an office environment to be. The space had a different buzz, we were able to see some of the projects the team had developed and play around with the virtual reality set. I wish I could write about what we were supposed to do on the training simulation, but one of my team members, Angel, insisted that we should all throw the tools off the platform. Needless to say, this is exactly what everyone did as this is the only thing she agreed to teach us to do.

Both visits were great fun and gave me an insight into the gears of a business but a major difference was the building interior itself. While the staff are bright and friendly, the earlier interior design was dull and boring and didn’t reflect the energy of some of the people I had met. The new design and colours stray away from the typical office greys and overall brings a better vibe to the work place. It still incorporates blue, as that’s is the company’s brand colour and represents some of their core values like freedom, trust and honesty. However, the additions of reds and greens, symbolising ambition and growth also represent the workforce and made the interior more aesthetically pleasing. The statement wall on the fifth floor with the company values is a great way to remind employees what they’re all about; I feel that even as a student, sometimes we can lose sight of what we’re working for and what we value, so to have this up somewhere for everyone to see was a great idea.

The Town Square was where my group and I worked for a large portion of the time and it was a better environment for group working and conversing over projects than how I remember it when I first visited. I also liked the boxed seating areas with the large screens for conference calls, I thought this had a cool and relaxing vibe and was a great use of space.

I had fun working with my team: Arshia, Thomas and Angel; they all came from different parts of London and were different ages. Overall, I had an amazing time and it was a week well spent. Although we may have been a bit excited and made a bit of noise, we all respect the work you do and we are grateful for the opportunity you granted!